Fox News is telling a one-sided story focused exclusively on cuts to defense spending that were included in a 2011 budget deal. What Fox is not telling its viewers is that the deal also included cuts to critical services for vulnerable Americans and reductions in important medical research funding, and that non-defense spending cuts would lead to a loss of more than 1 million jobs.

(UPDATE 3/2 5:18PM An Editor's Note now appended to the Politico story says it "mischaracterized the testimony of Energy Secreatry Steven Chu." The headline, lede, and body of the story have been corrected.)

A Politicostory fueling misguided attacks on Energy Secretary Steven Chu is not borne out by what actually occurred. The article titled, "Chu: DOE working to wean U.S. off oil, not lower prices," claimed:

The Energy Department isn't working to lower gasoline prices directly, Secretary Steven Chu said Tuesday after a Republican lawmaker scolded him for his now-infamous 2008 comment that gas prices in the U.S. should be as high as in Europe.

But this report is based on an assumption made by Politico reporter Alex Guillen about how Rep. Alan Nunnelee (R-MS) was going to finish a question. If that wasn't bad enough, Politico doubled down with another article today about Newt Gingrich -- who cited Guillen's story -- calling for Chu to be fired for the remarks. (UPDATE 3/2 6:00PMPolitico has also corrected this article.)

Here's what actually happened in the hearing (fuller video and transcript below):

REP. NUNNELEE: But is the overall goal to get our price--

CHU: No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil to -- to build and strengthen our economy and to decrease our dependency on oil.

But here's Politico's version of what happened:

"But is the overall goal to get our price" of gasoline down, asked Nunnelee.

"No, the overall goal is to decrease our dependency on oil, to build and strengthen our economy," Chu replied.

Guillen built his story on what he assumed Nunnelee was asking and gave no indication that the question was, in fact, ambiguous. There is good reason to believe that Chu thought Nunnelee was actually asking, "Is the overall goal to get our price up to European levels," since this was Nunnelee's previous question:

NUNNELEE: Thank you, Mr. Chairman. Thank you, Secretary for being here. Before you were nominated, you were quoted as saying, quote, "Somehow, we have to figure out how to boost the price of gasoline to the levels in Europe." I can't look at motivations. I have to look at results. And under this administration, the price of gasoline is doubled. While bumping $4 a gallon in North Mississippi, today the price of gasoline in Europe is about $8 a gallon, and the people of North Mississippi can't be here.

So, I have to be here and be their voice for them. And I have to tell you that $8 a gallon gasoline makes them afraid. It's a cruel tax on the people of North Mississippi as they try to go back and forth to work. It's a cloud hanging over economic development and job creation, and it appears to me this administration continues to drag its feet on oil exploration on fossil fuel development and recovery. How do you respond to that?

Fox "straight news" program America Live reported that Republicans have broken from their no-new-taxes position and introduced a deficit reduction proposal to the congressional "super committee" that includes new tax revenue, but completely ignored that they conditioned that proposal on the passage of massive tax cuts.

During today's edition of America Live, Mike Emanuel reported that Republicans on the congressional "super committee," which is charged with reducing the federal deficit over the next decade, offered a "$1.5 trillion package with about $300 billion in new tax revenue," but that the offer "was rejected" by the Democratic members of the committee. But Emanuel, the chief congressional correspondent for Fox News, made no mention of the fact the proposal would make permanent the Bush tax cuts, therefore more than off-setting the tax increases and significantly increasing deficits.

Watch the segment:

But Emanuel's reporting ignores the fact that the Republican-proposed revenue increase would be more than offset by massive tax cuts.

Reporting on the lawmakers selected to negotiate deficit reduction, Fox News' Mike Emanuel touted Sen. Rob Portman's (R-OH) "interesting background," saying that not only does he have legislative experience, but "he's done the budget from the administration side of things." But Portman's "interesting background" was serving as director of the Office of Management and Budget during the Bush administration when federal deficits more than doubled.

Fox News advanced the misleading claim that the Dream Act would encourage further illegal immigration and grant in-state tuition for unauthorized immigrants. In fact, those not already living in the United States would not be eligible for legal status under the Dream Act, and the bill would affirm state authority to determine in-state tuition rules.

For the second time in a week, Fox News' Special Report uncritically reported Army Chief of Staff Gen. George Casey's advancement of the myth that repeal of the military's "don't ask, don't tell policy" could adversely affect "readiness and military effectiveness," ignoring other nations that have allowed gay men and lesbians to serve openly have not suffered such adverse effects.

On Fox & Friends, correspondent Mike Emanuel advanced the falsehood that a public option will increase the national debt by adopting Sen. Joe Lieberman's claim that it "could rack up major debt, sending the country into a recession worse than the one we're currently in." In fact, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) found that health care bills with a public option reduce or have no major impact on the deficit; moreover, every proposed bill with a public option thus far has required enrollees to cover its costs through premiums, rather than have the plans be paid for through federal revenues.

Fox News has seized upon a study conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) for America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP), which concluded that under the Senate Finance Committee health care reform bill, "by 2019 the cost of single coverage is expected to increase by $1,500 more than it would under the current system and the cost of family coverage is expected to increase by $4,000 more than it would under the current system," in some cases reporting the study's conclusions as fact. However, health care experts have noted that, in the words of health care economist Len Nichols, "Aside from the obvious conflict of interest associated with a report funded by the very industry it analyzes, PWC's basic analytic assumptions -- by their own admission -- are at variance with the bill and the opinions of most analysts."

In recent days, media figures repeatedly referred to the Senate Democrats' possible use of reconciliation to pass health care reform with a simple majority as the "nuclear option," with Fox News going so far as to run graphics defining "nuclear option" as "[f]orcing government-run insurance through the Senate with just 51 votes." In fact, the term "nuclear option" was coined by then-Republican Sen. Trent Lott in 2005 to refer to a possible Republican attempt to change Senate filibuster rules, while the budget process, known as reconciliation, is already part of Senate procedure, and Republicans have used it repeatedly in the past.